I’m gonna be late for dinner, but I don’t care.
I have been looking forward to this post, and milestone in my life (hmmm…, consider which I listed first(?)) for a very long time. And I’ve posted on the subject several times, the first probably at least a year ago.
In October of 1996 I hit a personal high of $56,000 in unsecured, high interest rate credit card debt. That’s been like the heavy hooligan I had to carry on my shoulders at all times. I remember that when I first got into the $20K range they were doing news stories about people in that position. Now I think it’s common to be running high interest unsecured debt in that range. I did it primarily to finance a business, so it’s not like I have spare camcorders or SUVs lying around. Nevertheless, the devil has gotten his due and I’m still around to talk about it. I dread to think what I actually paid to get Beelzebub to squat on somebody else’s mailbox.
To reinforce that: tonight I wrote the check that pays off the last credit card!!! It’s done!!! Whoohoo!
I’ve lived like a hippie (I can say that - I was one) to get this done, and the feeling is GREAT. The Material Boy doesn’t care about much more (yeah, I need some glasses and a tooth done) - it doesn’t matter, I’m lighter than air.
Self-congratulatory threads being hitherto unknown to MPSIMS (:)), I’ll try to turn this to a social purpose. Those of you with creeping debt need to do what I have (ooh! That sounds so evangelical!) and just resolve to get the bastards out of your life. They’re easy to ignore in the short term, but they do continually feed on your soon-to-be-carcass.
Put them down, now!
Really, I could have carried on a few more years and money-managed the debt up to a $100K or so, which would have been impossible to pay off.
What do you really need?
Answer that and carry on.
You can get loose of The Machine.
This isn’t for all Dopers, but some might benefit. I’m whoohooin’…I’m free!!!
I wonder where I’ll put my energies now?
